The Second Phone
Chapter 05 - The Second Phone
Grant insisted the signature page was a draft.
Lauren demanded to see it.
Her name was there in clean black script.
It looked almost right.
Almost.
My sister signed her name with an exaggerated loop through the capital L, a habit she had picked up in high school. The signature on Grant’s document had the loop, but the angle was wrong.
Someone had studied her handwriting.
Grant loosened his tie.
“This never went into effect.”
“That is not the point,” Lauren said.
“No one filed it.”
“Then who forged my name?”
He looked at Celeste.
She laughed.
“You’re serious?”
Grant pointed at her phone.
“She had access to my office. She had access to my files.”
Celeste’s face changed.
Not fear.
Guilt.
I noticed.
“So you did?”
She took a breath.
“Sometimes.”
Grant seized on it immediately.
“She used my laptop. She knew my passwords. Rebecca, those messages could have been created by anyone with access to my accounts.”
For the first time since she interrupted the ceremony, doubt entered the room.
Celeste looked at me.
“I didn’t fabricate them.”
“Did you ever send a message from his phone?”
She hesitated.
“Once.”
Grant smiled without humor.
“There it is.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“It was months ago. I suspected he was seeing someone else. I used his phone to text his assistant and ask where he was.”
My stomach tightened.
“You were seeing Grant while he was engaged to me, and you thought he was cheating on you?”
The cruelty of the sentence landed on both of us.
Celeste’s chin trembled.
“I didn’t know about you at first.”
“At first?”
“He told me your engagement was business. He said you lived separate lives.”
Grant shook his head.
“She’ll say anything.”
I wanted to hate Celeste.
It would have been easier.
But she had walked into a wedding where everyone would despise her and handed me evidence that could destroy the man she claimed to love.
People chasing money usually did not volunteer to become the villain in front of a hundred strangers.
Luke knocked on the door.
“Rebecca?”
I opened it.
He held out a small black phone.
“Catering found this under the chair where Grant was sitting before the ceremony.”
Grant’s face drained.
I looked from the phone to him.
“You told me you only carry one.”
He said nothing.
Luke turned the screen toward me.
May you like
There were six missed calls.
All from Uncle Thomas.
